


Your heart is the only place I call home

by alwaysupatnight



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: F/M, bethylmeme
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-31
Updated: 2014-10-31
Packaged: 2018-02-23 04:29:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2534252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alwaysupatnight/pseuds/alwaysupatnight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ficlets based off of <a href="http://sheriffandsteel.tumblr.com/post/99956229159/i-have-a-feeling-we-will-not-be-seeing-a-bethyl">sheriffandsteel's Bethylmeme prompts</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Reunion

**Author's Note:**

> Bethylmeme prompt #21: Reunion
> 
> Daryl finds Beth. Or rather, Daryl stumbles upon Beth in beast mode.

Alone and on guard, Daryl raises his crossbow, narrowing his eyes at the rustling brush and the warning snaps of twigs beyond the darkened perimeter of the trees. The woods are perpetually alive with undead, and Daryl – always in anticipation of a number of grave events – readies himself for yet another fight, another setback in his search for Beth.

He’d been certain the car with the white cross would be the breadcrumb that would lead him to her. And he’d gotten close. Evidence of her was everywhere in that deathtrap of a hospital, in a broken heart pendant and a worn out cowgirl boot. She’d been there, and that was enough for him, even if he had to start his search again from scratch.

Daryl steadies his bow and scans the line of trees as the figure – man, walker, or animal? – approaches, prepared for everything, except maybe this:

The girl stalks out from between the trees like a feral animal, her blonde hair wild, leaves and twigs adorning her head like a wreath for a woodland goddess. She wields a handmade spear, the sharpened end bloodied by the final deaths of walkers who have crossed her path to return to him.

Daryl halts, lowering his loaded crossbow, disbelief written over his features. “Beth,” he says, her name strangled in his throat. He can hardly believe his eyes, attributing her vision to fatigue and dehydration. It’s happened before, he recalls, when Merle came to him during his search for Sophia. How can he be sure this isn’t just some trick of the mind as well?

Beth whirls around at the sound of his voice. She freezes, muscles primed and spear poised for attack. It’s a moment before Daryl sees the shift in her eyes, as she transforms from hunter to girl once more. He notices the moment she spots him, blue eyes widened with recognition, and the hunter fades completely, leaving nothing but the girl behind.

“Daryl?” she chokes, the makeshift weapon slipping from her two-handed grasp.

“BETH!” he shouts, moving towards her at a run before he’s even registered the action.

“DARYL?!” she cries.

She guns at him then, crashes into him with the force of a bullet, and he knows this time she’s real. Her fingers claw into his grimed up flannel shirt, digging into the skin underneath as she hugs close enough to bury herself within him.

Beth’s natural sweet scent mixed with the familiarity of earth and woods surrounds him as he tucks his face into her neck, in the mess of blonde hair spilling out of her ponytail. Daryl’s arms tighten around her small frame, a hug that seems to last until the end of time...

...up to the moment his legs give way and he falls to his knees, taking the girl with him. His grip finally loosens, and he captures her face in his palms. “Beth,” he says, repeating her name over and over, as if daring to stay silent might make her disappear again. “Beth,” he whispers, swiping her tear-streaked cheeks with the pads of his fumbling thumbs.

“Miss me?” she asks with a sniffle, smiling, though not proudly. Her features begin to crumble and a strangled sob finally tears through her and slices into him.

Daryl stares at the broken girl in his arms, unable to utter a single word through the obstruction in his throat. His vision blurs, and with ragged breath he nods his head.

She buries her face in his chest, clinging to him as her body shakes, shaking him with her.

A few minutes or a lifetime later, Daryl puts a few inches between them, only enough to see her face, her eyes squeezed shut and tear stains cutting tracks through the dirt on her face. He gently scans over her with both eyes and hands, and notices for the first time the purpling of her right cheek, the line of stitches on her forehead, the jagged scar on her left cheek. It seems she’d found her own darkness out there, her eyes shadowed with experiences not easily forgotten. Anger wells up inside him at the people who could have done such a thing, for causing the light in Beth Greene’s eyes to dim.

In their time together, she’d lit a fire of her own for him to carry around, caged within the vicinity of his beating heart. It’d been growing hotter every day without her, burned brighter with the return of Carol and baby Judith. He sees in her eyes a glimmer of what he’d seen in the mirror for the past thirty-odd years.

No, this time he’d be her light. He cups the back of her head and pulls her in, pressing his lips into her hair.

Their reunion is cut short at the sound of approaching walkers. The small crowd of undead shuffles slowly towards them as Daryl searches around for his crossbow – discarded in his urgency to reach Beth. The fierceness returns to Beth’s eyes, and she seizes her spear. She wipes at her wet face with the elbow of her baggy blue shirt, and gives Daryl a nod as the walkers shamble closer to them.

He tugs the girl up, keeping her close now that she’s found. “C’mon,” he says, snatching up his bow before leading her away from the clearing and into the trees, easily evading the walkers that’d snuck up on them. “Our people are waitin’ for us.”


	2. Physical Contact

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Beth and Daryl and scars. Takes place shortly after Reunion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bethylmeme prompt #16: Physical Contact

Beth hisses, wincing as Daryl applies antibiotic ointment with the tip of his pointer finger to the stitches on her forehead.

“Sorry,” he grunts in apology.

The wound is still fresh, no more than a couple days old. One of the doctors had taken the care to stitch her up nice, but that consideration was pretty much worthless in Beth’s opinion when they were the people to hurt her in the first place.

Beth’s lips flatten into a thin line as Daryl continues to smear ointment over the line of stitches, and distracts herself with the sleeping figures lying beyond the fire, all huddled close together for warmth. Even Michonne is lying closer to the Grimes unit than usual. They’d lost a lot of people. But despite everything, their family had managed to come together again, and even picked up a few new friends along the way.

“What happened?” Daryl asks, wrenching Beth away from thoughts of her family.

Beth sighs, having been expecting this question for some time. He must have been itching to ask for a while now, ever since that first glimpse he’d gotten of her when he’d bothered to pull out of their hug long enough to check her over for injuries (walker related or not). His face screwed up when he’d finally noticed the damage to her face, a low growl bursting from his lips. And then his hand had cupped the back of her head and brought her close, fingers threaded through her hair and lips innocently nudged against her temple, allowing her to absorb all of the comfort she needed from him. But she knew sooner or later she’d have to explain. If not to Daryl, then to Maggie. She just wished it could be postponed until later.

Much, _much_ later.

“I don’t really wanna talk about it,” she mumbles.

“Alright,” he says.

And then it all comes spewing out of her mouth anyway. She never was one for keeping things bottled up inside.

“I woke up,” she says. “I woke up and I didn’t know where I was. Where _you_ were. I was... so scared.” Her lip trembles, and tears threaten to pool in her eyes, but she just manages to hold them back.

Daryl stays quiet, and Beth can’t tell what he’s thinking (she never could tell). He dutifully finishes up with the ointment, wiping the remaining gel on his pants. He then takes her hand and carefully places a bandage over a small cut on the back of her hand, gently pressing down the adhesive edges so they stick to her skin right. It’s such a nothing cut, she doesn’t know why he’s wasting them. Not like she’s much to look at anyway, not now after–

“But ya made it,” he finally says.

Beth glances down at her hand, still cradled in Daryl’s much larger, rougher one. She’s feeling pretty dry and cracked all over lately too.

“This one,” she rasps, pointing to her left cheek, “must’ve happened when they grabbed me. I don’t know how. And this one?” she says, indicating the one on her forehead. “Got it when I refused to play by the rules.” Beth gives a bitter laugh. “She _really_ didn’t like that.”

“She?”

Beth’s dark laugh quickly turns into a strangled sob, and Daryl’s fingers tense around hers. “You don’t know what I had to do,” she says. “The things they tried to–” The rest is choked off as the memories come surging back. “How can you even stand to look at me now?”

She’d seen herself in the mirror when she’d been excused to the bathroom to change out of those horrible blue scrubs. Her face is battered worse than a piñata on Cinco de Mayo. Her right cheek had been the bare canvas for Officer Lerner to paint her aggression. Only, instead of using a brush, she’d used the butt of her loaded sidearm. Still, none of it compares to the ugliness scarring Beth’s heart. Her daddy had always said there’s nothing uglier than hate, and to never use the word because of its power. But she can’t give any other name for what she feels for those people.

She _hates_ them.

“I’m ugly,” she says, turning her face away as a tear escapes down her cheek.

“Seen worse,” Daryl says.

Beth gives a watery laugh. “Guess the sayin’s true after all,” she mutters. “Be careful what you wish for and all that. Wished I could change. Now I wanna go back to just being Beth.” Her face crumbles and tears blur her vision.

With a huff, Daryl abruptly stands and sheds his vest.

“Wh-what are ya doin’?” Beth asks, staring wide-eyed as he holds his vest out, gesturing for her to take it. She finally takes the beloved garment and lays it carefully in her lap.

Daryl then shrugs out of his denim jacket, followed by his button-down shirt, letting both articles of clothing drop to the ground by Beth’s feet. He pauses when he’s down to just a dark t-shirt, and gnaws furiously at his bottom lip.

“Daryl?”

With both hands clenching the frayed edges of his shirt, Daryl lifts the hem, drawing it all the way over his head and halfway down his arms. He shivers as bare skin meets chilly winter air.

Beth had never once seen Daryl with his shirt off, even when they were alone all those weeks and with severe limitations to privacy. Even when the other men in their group would shed their shirts during the hot summer days like second skins, Daryl had always remained clothed. When he turns around, his back facing her, Beth gasps in horror, finally understanding _why_.

His back is a crosshatch illustration of abuse, each raised scar more than a few inches in length, and although faded, remain perfectly etched in his skin. “My dad,” is all he says by way of explanation. It’s all he needs to say, and the sting at the back of Beth’s eyes isn’t for her own scars this time. “The scars don’t change who ya are. You do that,” he says over his shoulder, watching her from behind the length of hair shielding his eyes. “If ya wanna go back, y’can.”

Beth drags her eyes away from the battered surface of his back. Like torn canvas, tears in the skin can be repaired. Only, it never looks quite the same, does it?

“I don’t wanna see anymore,” she says, voice wobbly, training her eyes on the leather vest in her lap. “I don’t like thinking about you in pain.”

Daryl nods and reaches for his discarded clothing, quickly pulling on each article before taking a seat beside her, accidentally bumping her shoulder as he does up the buttons on his jacket. His arm unexpectedly comes around her shoulders then, and Beth presses closer to his side, his warmth seeping into her.

“Scars’ll fade,” he says, “but Beth don’t have to fade with ‘em.”

Beth nods, sniffling as she unconsciously fingers the hanging threads on the angel wings in her lap.


End file.
